Goal Setting for Teens

Learning specialist Bobbi DePorter, has lived the 8 Keys for more than 25 years. They are principles of behavior that inspire people to try great thingsand succeed. These Keys have the power to constantly propel you forward and to help bring purpose, meaning and fulfillment to your life and your work.

The first key is balance – living a fulfilled life by aligning your mind, body and spirit. You create balance in your life by apportioning your time according to your highest priorities.

What are the things that are most important to you? Family, friends, health, a talent you have, a cause you care about? Spending time on the things that are important to you brings a sense of balance. Staying in balance is an ongoing process that is affected by the choices you make every day. It brings a feeling of quiet peace you might not even notice.

Balance is a subtle, quiet Key

Balance is subtle. You may not always recognize it when it’s there, but you’ll feel its absence. Imbalance clanks loudly, like an out-of-tune piano. When you’re out of balance, you know it.

Keeping your balance is about bringing your life into alignment, recognizing when some part of your life doesn’t reflect your priorities, and rearranging your life in a way that creates an ongoing sense of peace and fulfillment. When you’re able to make time for what matters in your life, your life will be in balance, you will feel fulfilled, and you won’t be plagued with a nagging sensation that some aspect of life is passing you by.

When she was in the process of developing the 8 Keys, Bobbi first tried to bring balance to her life by devoting equal time and energy to all the important aspects of her life. She made a pie chart and devoted equal slices to work, home, family, friends, charitable organizations, and so forth, and then set about trying to apportion her time to match the chart.

No matter how hard she tried to do strike a balance in her life that way, no matter how close she got to that goal, something still felt out of whack. Eventually, she came to realize that it wasn’t a matter of rigidly devoting equal time to everything that mattered to her, but of prioritizing and then finding the allotment of time and energy that created the greatest sense of fulfillment. That’s balance.

How to know when you’re out of balance

You may not recognize that you’re out of balance unless you take the time to step back and look at your life from a different perspective. And remember that the times we’re most in need of a new perspective are often the times when it’s most difficult to take that break.

1. Take a time-outespecially when you think you can least afford it Sometimes when you’re going too fast in one or more areas of your life, you just have to call a time-out, just like a basketball coach whose team seems out of sync. Take your time out to do something fun and relaxing and make sure it’s a long enough break that it gives you a chance to evaluate how you’re spending your time and if aspects of your life might be out of balance.

Balance has little to do with the amount of time you spend in any area of your life. When you’re focused and excited about something, you can spend mega hours at it and feel fulfilled and balanced. So, don’t worry about whether you’re spending too much time at something. The secret to balance lies not in an allotment of time but in an awareness of your priorities.

2. Check your priorities daily When you’re driving a car, you’re making constant small corrections. You’re steering, adjusting the gas, and braking almost automatically, but you are paying attention and constantly making corrections to accommodate changing situations along your route. Keeping your life in balance requires the same kind of ongoing correction process. Balance is about choices. When you’re keeping yourself in balance you’re making a thousand internal corrections each day. You’re constantly asking yourself, What do I value? What’s really important? Does this activity really need to be done now?

No matter how good you become at it, you won’t be in balance every moment of every day. Tune in to the signals your mind, spirit, and body send that warn you when you’re slipping out of balance. Compensate sooner rather than later. The quicker you realign yourself, the smaller the “wobble” you’ll have to correct.

The balance that comes from fulfillment acts as a lens. It clears the view to your dream. Balance and the big picture are self-reinforcing energies. Stay balanced, and you’ll be able to keep the big picture in sightstay focused on the big picture, and you’ll see clearly the choices that will keep your balance. Fulfillment creates balanceand balance creates fulfillment. Make choices that are consistent with what makes you feel fulfilled. Use this Balance affirmation often: I give to the things that are important to me the amount of time that creates the greatest sense of fulfillment.

“The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness. It’s the things you do half-heartedly that really wear you out.” David Whyte

One of the 8 Keys of Excellence kids 9-19 learn about at SuperCamp, the life skills and academic summer camp, is Commitment. Commitment is about doing whatever it takes, following your vision without wavering. When you do this, you literally can change the world.

Anyone who has ever succeeded at something difficult did so by being completely committed to the goal. Commitment is the breath-taking moment of making a decision, jumping in, and going forward with gusto. It’s the magic moment when all hesitation and ineffectiveness are left behind. The decisive act of making a commitment sets into motion an energy field of action to propel you forward.

Where does your commitment lie! What excites you and spurs you to action? When was a time you were highly committed, and what were the results?

To harness the power of commitment, think about what you love passionately enough to give it all you’ve gotthen give it. Commitment can spring from anything that inspires strong feeling. It can be motivated by a deeply felt aspiration, a strongly held principle, or the desire to make a difference in people’s lives.

Commitment comes down to a simple moment of decision: Will you, or will you not, do whatever it takes?

Once you’ve made the decision to follow your passion no matter what, your commitment carries you through. It’s the “no matter what” part that holds all the power. You’re locked into staying the course. You may feel discouraged, even hopeless. You may lose all your confidence in yourself. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. You’ve vowed to go on trying no matter what. Circumstances become irrelevant in the face of commitment.

Whatever it is that inspires you, give yourself permission to lose yourself utterly in what you love and you’ll have no choice but to commit. Simply let your passion take over and you will harness the titanic strength of commitment.

Commitment is all about that moment when there’s no turning backthe magic that results when you’re truly committed. It’s a mind-set where there are no other options. There are no more debates, no mind-games, no procrastination. There is only action, single-minded, focused, and pure. That commitment wields a mighty power and brings with it an intense joy.

One thing to remember here is that “I’ll try” doesn’t work! You may get up enough courage to go for it, but you haven’t really made a commitment if you tell yourself, “Well, I’ll try.” You’re not committed to doing whatever it takes to succeed. In fact, you’ve given yourself an out. Now, when you fall short of the mark, you can say, “Well, I tried.” When you’re not committed, you leave a crack open for hesitation. Hesitation leaks energy. Energy leaks reduce the chance of success.

To the uncommitted, the committed look strangely fortunate. Happy circumstances just seem to land in their laps. They seem, almost uncannily, to meet the people they need to know and find the opportunities they need. They see solutions where others only see obstacles. But the committed will tell you it’s not because they view things differently than the non-committed; it’s because they never stop looking for a way to make their dreams happen.

That’s the primary characteristic of committed people: They’re driven by their dreams.

Affirmations for COMMITMENT:

* I have a clear vision and I stay true to it.

* I do whatever it takes to get the job done.

* I can be counted on to keep my word.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has

genius, power, and magic in it.” Goethe

Live in INTEGRITY is the first of the 8 Keys of Excellence Supercampers learn over the summer.

Integrity is first about knowing yourselfknowing your values, your desires, your talents, your dreamsand then being true to that self, in all your actions and interactions. Integrity is behavior congruent with your values. When your actions are aligned with your values, you conduct yourself with authenticity, sincerity and wholeness. When you clarify your values, it helps you set goals that are consistent with those values. Together, your values and goals bring a sense of passion and purpose to your work and your life. A lot of people simply act as they feel like acting, then find some justificationany justificationfor why they did what they did. Their actions are largely unconsidered.

Highly successful people, in contrast, use their values to steer their actions. They reflect, and then act. Their values motivate their actions, because they choose their actions to harmonize with their values. Check your motivationcan you be honest enough with yourself to really admit why you’re doing something? Is it really a reflection of your values, or a reflection of what you want at the moment?

Choose your behavior to reflect your values, and you’ll move through life with authenticity, sincerity, and wholeness. When you live with integrity, it’ll show. People will trust you, almost instinctively. They’ll think of you as a person of your word. You’ll be known for your strong character.

When you live with integrity, you’ll enjoy a clear conscience. You’ll be filled with good feelings about yourself. Those good feelings will pour into everything you say and do. Integrity fosters trust and respect, the cornerstones of good relationships and good relationships are vital to success in all aspects of life. Align your actions with your values.

Live what you value. If you value honesty, be truthful. If you value keeping your word, follow through. If you value being fair, do what you expect others to do.

Your identity is who you are. Your integrity is an expression of who you are. – What do you value? – How do these values show up in your life? – Do your current actions support your values?

First define your values; then align your actions with your values.

Affirmations for INTEGRITY: – I have stated beliefs and values. – I know and understand them. – My behavior reflects them.

“Integrity simply means not violating one’s own identity.” Erich Fromm

The academic summer camp for teens and pre-teens, SuperCamp, tells students to get off what’s not working. Shift perspectives. Maintain the ability to change what you’re doing to get the outcome you desire.

Flexibility is being prepared for change and having the willingness to do things differently. If a strategy is not working, try something different until you find something that does work. Many times every day you face situations that look different from what you had planned. You could be rigid and continue to do things the same way over and over. Or you could be flexible and respond by adapting to the changing situation. Which response is more likely to produce your desired outcome in the long run?

Go on make a change try something different People in their eighties and nineties looking back at their long lives have said that their regrets are more often about the opportunities for change they didn’t take than the ones they did. More often than not, change pays off. Hockey player Wayne Gretzky put it this way: “You miss 100% of the goals you never try for.” Then why don’t people make more changes? What keeps people from trying new things? Comfort? Convenience? Fear of the unknown? Using old methods feels easiereven though it often isn’t. How well do you handle change? Do you hold on to old ways of doing things even when you know they don’t work? We all do sometimes. It’s not easy to recognize or admit when something isn’t working. Some people routinely fight against change. You’ve probably known rigid, inflexible people who refuse to adapt to new circumstances. But let me ask you: How many highly successful rigid people do you know? What’s flexibility? It’s the capability to adapt to new or changing situations to obtain the outcome you want. It’s the ability to get off what’s not working and find what does work. And it’s a prime ingredient of a successful life in a changing world. Why Flexibility? Every day we face situations that are different from what we expected or planned. But we do have choices when this occurs. We can be rigid and stick with a set of behaviors that no longer fit the planor we can adapt and handle the situation with flexibility. We all know that life does not follow a rigid plan. It’s fluid, dynamic, and ever-changing. Staying flexible means having the courage and openness to change when your situation changes. Every aspect of our lives demands flexibility. You’re running six mornings a week to train for a tennis tournament but you sprain your ankle; instead of giving up, you swim in the mornings until you heal. You’ve planned lunch with an old friend at an upscale bistro, but when you learn that she’s bringing her four small kids you opt instead for a burger restaurant with a play area for kids. You’re planting a bed of red roses and need six more to finish, but your local nursery is out of the red varietyyou alternate red with white. You get a great promotion, but at the same time your mother falls ill, so you defer your job change for three months so you can take care of her, but while you’re there you study to prepare for your new position. Life can require flexibility in the greatest and smallest of situations.

Be ready to change what you’re doing to reach your goals Flexibility challenges you to let go of what’s not working and try new things until you hit upon what does work. It’s hard to recognizeeven harder to admitwhen something’s not working. You’ve invested time, money, prideand you’ve convinced yourself it has to work. To become flexible, develop the ability to recognize when it’s time to let go of an unworkable method and try something different. It’s hard on the ego, but until you admit you’ve got a problem, you can’t take the next step. Try these steps to move toward greater flexibility:

* First, you have to accept the reality of change. Recognize that it’s normal to change the way you do things because it’s inevitable that circumstances change. It’s nothing personalit’s just the nature of life. The best plans in the world can become impractical or obsolete. Make it okay for something not to work.

* Second, in order to let go of things that aren’t working, learn to detach your ego. We get our pride wrapped up in our methodswe take the need for change as a personal attack on our intelligence or our ability. Or sometimes we just get stubbornly attached to our way of doing things because it’s “our way.” Make sure your ego doesn’t get in the way of your flexibility. Take your work, not yourself, seriously. What you want is more important than looking good.

* Third, challenge your assumptions. In order to see when change is needed, you have to become conscious of your beliefs about a situation. Don’t judge (and condemn) alternate paths before you’ve tried them. To increase awareness of your assumptions, become a rigorous questioner of your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. Question your authority! Learn to ask yourself, “Why do I think that?”

* Finally, learn to recognize the difference between a plan that’s not working and a temporary setback. When things are not going well it could be because the method is bad and doomed to fail, or it may simply be a momentary pause in a massive upswing. How will you know the difference? Your gut will tell you. Tune in to your gut, then measure your results. New ideas don’t come to those with closed minds. When you realize it’s time to reformulate your actions, break yourself wide open. Start by promising yourself to be wide open to new thoughts. Learn to suspend your assumptions and listen without judgment. Brainstorm. Branch out. Get creative. Explore as many possible solutions as you can. By throwing yourself open to the possibilities, you’ll discover avenues for success that you would never have considered before. You might even find ways to improve things that are working.

If you want to experience whole-life success, learn to dance with change. To succeed, you have to look for ways to make everything better. Suspend your assumptions, seek new ground, throw yourself headlong into the unknown. Borrow ideas from other subjects, other applications. If you can find wisdom in the way a violin is tuned, that same method may apply to the way an annual report is written. If the patrol method used by Canadian geese to safeguard their flocks works for them, the same method might work to keep a group of nine-year-olds safe on a camping trip. Be willing to cross borders, mix and match, move methods from one application to another, and stand them on their heads.

Don’t fall back into rigidity if you find a possible solution and it doesn’t work. If the old method wasn’t the method, this new one might not be it either. Be ready to try several new methods! Assign a deadline to the experiment and give it all you’ve got for the duration. If, in that time, it yields few results, let it go. Complacency is the enemy of success. When you get comfortable, you stop moving forward. You dig in, shut down, doze off, disengage. Your spirit falls asleep. If complacency is the enemy of success, change is its best friend. Change wakes you up, gets you on your feet, and engages you. But change for its own sake isn’t what I’m talking about here. It doesn’t work to simply change things randomly. The rule of thumb when it comes to change is to keep what’s workingand let go of what’s not.

Commit to Flexibility – it’s fun, and it works!

When you commit to Flexibility, you’ll discover a side benefitlife’s more fun when you’re flexible! Being open to change as you meet the unknown can be a thrill! A friend who’s president of a state university told me he knows he’s on track, moving things forward, when he feels a bit of fear. Do you sometimes find yourself tingling with fear? Do you experience that heightened sense of alertness and readiness that comes with facing change? Excellent! That’s how you know you’re flexible enough to enjoy the challenge of changeand the success it brings. Affirmations for FLEXIBILITY:

* I challenge my assumptions in order to see when change is needed.

* When something isn’t working, I try another way.

* I change strategies whenever it’s necessary to attain my goals.

“When you’re through changing, you’re through.” Bruce Barton